


Forever Today, Never Tomorrow

by Anonymous



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Fluffy Angst, Gen, batfamily, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5895502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recovering from pneumonia is one thing. Recovering from a childhood of violence is another.<br/>(In which Bruce discovers that Damian has many secrets that even he can't protect from his son.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever Today, Never Tomorrow

“I’m going with you!”

“It’s a liabil—”

“I don’t care!”

“You’re sick, you’re unabl—”

“But at least I’ll be useful!”

“No, because you’ll overwork yourself and be back right where you started. I’ve learned from Tim.”

“Ha! Drake ruins everything! I’m not him!”

“I know _that_.”

Ouch.

Damian stepped back, large eyes shadowed in the synthetic cave lights. Bruce adjusted his cape and closed his eyes. Not what he meant. Mistake, rewind, erase, backspace backspace backspaaaaaac—

_Crash!_

A device slammed against the wall, nuts and bolts splaying into the air and rolling across the floor.

Bruce whipped around, seeing Damian clench his fists. “You’re a coward!” he accused, blue eyes bloodshot and shiny. “It’s foolish and biased behavior and I won’t stand for it! I’m better, Father. I know myself, I can do it!” Damian very well shook in frustration. “You’re wrong. I’m not a liability. You are. You think I’m not in control! I am not dangerous! THAT’S NOT WHO I AM!”

…This opened a whole new can of worms. Better to address the main task.

Bruce stared at his youngest son. “Screaming,” he intoned darkly, “will not change my mind.” He felt bad for the boy, truly. Damian was just getting over a nasty case of pneumonia, thanks to waiting hours under Gotham wharf for a drug bust in one of the coldest winters on record. Thanks to Bruce’s indiscretion and mistaking the physical body of a near twelve year old. Thanks to his supposedly responsible parenting. Bruce repressed a groan. He bet that Dick, a kid in his twenties, probably would have handled that situation better.

Damian stood near the stairs, arms crossed. His flannel pajama pants were loose on his hips. He had lost weight during his sickness. Bruce gazed at his son, who had gained two or three inches within last year. His limbs were elongating into the pre-teen, gangly phase. Soon he’d be stumbling and bumping his toes on everything. Jason was the worst during that time. Bruce remembered a certain circumstance when Jay broke his toe, went to grab a splint, and during the process fell down the stairs. No injuries suffered, except one: another broken toe.

On the opposite foot.

“…Father?” Damian’s small, raspy voice asked hopefully.

Bruce focused his attention on the matter at hand. His son’s face was slightly flushed, retaining the child-like curve. Yet the edges of adulthood were becoming prominent, slimming his jaw and cheekbones.

Talia’s cheekbones.

For a moment he almost said yes. He himself certainly wouldn’t have wanted to stay inside. But this wasn’t about him. This was about Damian. He thought back to a recent patrol with Dick, who had expanded on the psychology of child rearing.

“You can’t just think of yourself,” Dick had said, twisting through a throng of gargoyle boulders. “You’ve got to think about what’s best for the person, and how that decision could affect the future. However,” he continued, setting his weight on his hands and walking the lip of the roof precariously, “you’ve gotta think about how your decision affects their psyche.” The handstand stilled, legs lowering behind him and landing near his hands. Nightwing rolled up, upper body facing the horizon. “All in a-LLLL—” his voice wavered from the shift of stance, due to Batman catching him by the collar and dragging him off the edge. He grinned. Who knew the big guy still got antsy with the stunts? “It’s a balance,” he explained.

A balance.

And within a balance, there were boundaries. Boundaries for protection, not for imprisonment.

This parenting thing was hard.

“Go to bed, Damian,” he finally said tiredly. He turned away, adjusting his gauntlets.

Damian’s dragon breath echoed behind him. “Fine!” he spat, throwing up his arms. “I’ll go to bed but,” and he announced this very arrogantly, very royally, and very much like Talia, “I _shall not_ go to sleep.” He spun on his heel and stomped up the stairs.

Bruce sighed. The boy had been having nightmares, he was functioning on hardly an hour’s rest every night. Should he stay? If he did, he doubted Damian would be very receptive to his concern.

He began walking to the batmobile, revving up the engine. What was it his mother always said? “ _Oif morgen zol Got zorgen_ ,” he mumbled.

Let God worry about tomorrow.

~

Damian stomped up two thirds of the stairs before stopping to huff at the injustice (or maybe he was catching his breath. It didn’t matter, the purpose required the same action). Even so, he better just…sit for a moment. He settled on a step that gave a wide berth, stretching his legs across it. Father was being ridiculous. There was no other explanation. (All right, perhaps there was, but that did not mean he had to acknowledge it.) The boy felt fine. This precaution was unnecessary. Father was just…being Father. He sighed. He didn’t know what he expected.

The diagnosis for insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Damian was, in the outlined terms, clinically insane.

A pad of small feet was heard, and the boy looked up to see his furry pet saunter beside him. He outstretched a hand and the cat rubbed its head against it. Alfred licked generously. Damian smiled at the slight tickle. He brought his knees by his aching, cold chest. “You aren’t scared of me,” he confided in the feline. It responded with a whining mew, pawing at his lap. The child gave all his attention and caressing to the animal, not heedful to the chill settling in the air. “You know something? I think I should go fix that device. After all,” he continued, sneezing from the unfortunate fur in his nose, “I was almost done.”

The cat purred.

“That’s what I thought. Come on, let’s go,” he said as he scooped up the cat (who, Damian noticed, made a heavy _oof_ sound. His mouth downturned. Despite the boy’s insistence, human Alfred was sneaking feline Alfred meat scraps. Traitors. Their unholy alliance may have something to do with matching names. He ought to have thought that through).

Damian shivered, poking his head around the corner. The batmobile was gone, but he wouldn’t put it past the man to leave cameras and/or random zapping batbots. The man was careful, yet not overzealous. Damian was very glad that Father thought Todd’s suggestion of a batleash was a joke. Todd wasn’t joking (he knew, he saw the leash (more like costume-matching harness) in Todd’s motorcycle pack. Obtuse vigilante with his “Safe Robin” protocol). Well, whatever could report him probably wasn’t going to go away. Sighing, he accepted his fate and placed his toes upon the concrete.

Ack. Freezing.

Damian hitched the cat bundle a little higher in his arms and leaped across the floor. No flashing lights or system booming instructions. Good. He wouldn’t have listened anyway.

The boy made quick work of retrieving the broken device parts and swung under a work table. The cat mewled discontentedly, disliking sharing his master’s warm lap with cold, unfeeling (and in Alfred’s esteemed opinion, _rude_ ) metal. Damian listened and lowered his legs, resting them on the frigid floor. He stroked Alfred while working on the device one handed, screws resting between his teeth.

He wasn’t _in_ bed per se, but the location of “bed” is a varied concept. Anywhere could be bed. The work bench above his head could be bed. Thus, he was technically in bed. And he _shan’t_ go to sleep.

The device beeped and groaned, quivering with effort. It collapsed. The shambles looked up at him sadly.

Damian grunted, dragging it closer. No matter. He’d keep working with it.

He was insane, after all.

~

Bruce stepped out, removing his cowl. Not a good night. He shook his head, removing his gauntlets. The Batman never stopped, the duty was never fulfilled. He knew this. _He knew this_.

The man scanned the room and sighed. His wayward child, despite the dramatic vow, was most certainly not in bed and most certainly asleep. Bruce made his way over to the work table. He took note of the cat hair splayed across the boy’s shirt. The feline had abandoned him in favor of the warmth upstairs. At least he hadn’t been alone the entire time. The father crouched down, contemplating waking the boy. Best not to, this was more than he had slept in days. Resolved, he reached out to touch the boy—

And promptly found a screwdriver pressed against his neck.

He glanced down. Damian’s eyes were glazed and lethal.

Bruce took no chances. Within seconds he incapacitated the boy, screwdriver knocked to the floor. His son attacked once more, going for the eyes. He was swiftly and firmly intercepted. Bruce stopped another attack, knocking the child’s legs downwards. “Damian,” he uttered roughly. The boy continued to struggle. “Damian!”

“Don’t touch me!” the boy screeched, arching backwards. “I didn’t know!”

Bruce shook him once, twice, thrice until Damian blinked into reality. He blinked away his terror, chest heaving. His electric eyes fell on his father’s large hands gripping his own. Why would Father…oh. His heart seized with regret.

Bruce released the small, cold hands reluctantly. “Are you all right?” he questioned. Demanded.

Damian swallowed. “Fine.”

He tipped his head forward. “Nightmare?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask what about?”

“…”

Bruce resisted sighing a very long, weary sigh.

Damian did not as much as fidget. His body was thrumming with adrenaline, straight as a board. He looked like a child soldier.

The father and son avoided each other. The words from earlier in the night reverberated across their minds:

_“I’m not dangerous! THAT’S NOT WHO I AM!”_

The child stepped back. Turning around, he lowered his head, mumbled a “sorry”, and dashed up the stairs.

 _Beep_.

The man looked at the device. A handheld gauntlet disinfectant that powered on solar energy, with a compartment for classifying, separating, and packaging DNA samples. It was also belt compactable.

It was fit for Bruce’s gauntlets.

“He’s a kid,” Red Robin had scoffed on patrol, fending off three attacks at once. “You all act as though he’s a rubik’s cube. Which,” he caught his foster father’s eye, “isn’t hard to solve. He’s indulged too much in one area and deprived in another. You need to establish a balance.”

There it was again, that “balance.”

Bruce grunted, removing the thugs from their path. “I don’t think we should be discussing this on patrol,” he commented. “Besides, it isn’t our business how he handles himself.”

The young man snorted. “Sorry, Batman,” he said while throwing a punch. “But everything is your business.”

He gazed at the device.

Tim was right.

Of course.

He was really beginning to regret imparting his hard-earned knowledge to that boy; Tim was sassing back and being correct far too often.

~

The door creaked open slowly.

Bruce let out a breath.

The room revealed a sleeping young boy sprawled on the floor, dog tucked against his master. The cat flicked its tail in acknowledgement of Bruce’s presence. Titus gave a happy bark.

“So glad you approve,” he remarked quietly, stepping inside. He caught the sight of two empty teacups and confiscated them. With a sniff, he deciphered that Alfred (the human) had drugged the tea. Thank you, he mentally thanked the ever-consistent caregiver.

No longer harboring the worry of another attack, Bruce sat down beside his son. A ruffle of pages caused a circumspect peek at the sketchbook. It was wide open. That meant an invitation, right?

Alfred’s yellow eyes judged passively, much like his namesake.

Bruce shifted, unwilling to feel guilty by a cat. “He’s my son,” he defended.

Condemning stare.

The man squared off against the feline. “I’m…concerned,” he told it.

Titus barked again, nudging his arm.

Taking that as permission, Bruce picked up the sketchbook.

**Onyx Claw, 2013**

**Dijinn, March, 2009**

**Vika, ???**

**Kalma, November 21, 2011**

**Bystander, 2012**

**Tutor, 2007**

**Antaeus, September, 2013**

**Bystander, 2009**

**Blue Blade, ???**

**Qismat, 2011**

**Cruach, July, 2012**

**~~Umbra, December 6, 2011~~ Umbra, December 6, 2011**

…And more names scrambled across the page, deep and black and frantic.

Bruce closed the sketchbook.

He sat back, gazing at the crackling fire.

And gathered his child— _his child_ —into his arms and held on tightly. Damian was deeply asleep, the only time his unruly, disobedient, _wonderful_ child was complacent.

Bruce stood, tucking the boy close to his chest. His son’s body was small. He could hear the steady heartbeat. He brought a hand to the young face, stroking the dark hair away from the tanned forehead. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Damian, I’m so sorry.”

The father then settled in an armchair near the fire, unwilling to let his son go. He gazed at his son’s face, lingering over the dark eyelashes and cupid’s bow lips. He had never noticed. Damian was still so young. There was still so much time. He sat back and gently kissed the boy’s forehead. Damian mewled, brow furrowing. Bruce smoothed it out with his thumb. “Shh,” he murmured. “ _Oif morgen zol Got zorgen_. You’re here today. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” And he was never letting go.

He was truly, irrevocably a blessed man.

Bruce closed his eyes, resting his chin on the small, soft head.

He’d take his mother’s advice.

Let God worry about tomorrow.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Oif morgen zol Got zorgen” is a Yiddish phrase meaning “Let God worry about tomorrow.” I don’t speak Yiddish, but found several websites specific to Yiddish saying the same thing, so please pardon me if it’s wrong. I believe it’s canon that Bruce’s mother, Martha, is Jewish. I wanted to include that part of his heritage, especially in regards to motherly sayings.

Damian is a very complex character, and there is so much ignored or generally beaten around the bush about his past. I’m not about that. This boy deserves to have some light shed on what he’s been through. Hopefully I’ve contributed well enough.

The names, just in case anyone didn’t catch it, are his past victims. I placed the story at 2016, so deduct 12 years and you get his age per each victim.


End file.
